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State-regulated cannabis. What is it and when and where can you buy it?

State-regulated cannabis. What is it and when and where can you buy it?

7 September 2019 | (Last update at 13 April 2020)

Index

What is state-regulated cannabis?
Large cities dropped out of the experiment
The assortment
What will be the price of this legalized weed?
Buy state-regulated marijuana

Update 09-06-2020 - The government has put an application form online for growers who want to participate in the state regulated cannabis experiment. From 1 July 2020, they can sign up via this page of the National Government. There are several conditions that the grower must meet. The grower must supply an extensive plan, in which the location, the (business) plan and the security plan are described. Ultimately, the government will choose 10 growers that may participant in the experiment.

What is state-regulated cannabis?

Somewhere around 2021 it will finally happen: The Netherlands will take a giant leap when it comes to the legalization of cannabis. In a four year trial, mostly known as 'de wietproef' (the weed test), will be tested what the effects of the sale of regulated cannabis will be. So basically you may call this state-approved weed. Originally 26 cities have signed up, and finally 10 different places remained where legally grown marijuana and hashish will be sold. The following cities participate:

Large cities dropped out of the experiment

It has already become clear that the largest cities in Holland: Amsterdam , Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, will not participate. One of the main reasons of this drop out is the demand of the government that every coffeeshop in the relevant city has to participate. According to the big cities, this was simply not doable for all the coffee shops in the city. The lack of state-regulated weed in these cities is far from ideal for many residents and tourists in the "Randstad". They will now have to travel quite a bit to buy the state-approved marijuana.

The assortment

According to the advisory committee there should be a sufficiently varied range of cannabis supplied to the coffeeshops. It is known that 10 weed selected producers need to produce 10 kinds of marijuana each. Even though the current range in the cannabis cafes of course is much higher, you can say that this is a good start. It shouldn't be very difficult for the average customer to pick a (new) strain.

The assortment of a coffeeshop that participates in the experiment will not immediatly be replaced entirely. However, the politicians still fear for diversion into illegal trade if customers find that their favorite weed species is not sold anymore. On the up side, this new process will probably raise the quality of the weed. For example, you won't find additional substances like lead in the state weed. The information and specifications about a product will improve a lot compared to the current information. Growers will probably be obliged to mention how high the THC content of their grown cannabis is on the packaging. The political party D66, the party that devised the weed test, hopes to make a move to the criminal circuit that takes care of the cannabis cultivation at this moment. In this way, they will try to reduce nuisance and increase safety (and of course quality).

What will be the price of this legalized weed?

At this time we don't know a lot about the pricing of the legalized marijuana. However, many people agree that the price should not be higher than the current price, because otherwise the legal cannabis can't compete with illegal cannabis. In theory you could even think that if the plant is being mass produced, the price should actually be much lower.

Buy state-regulated marijuana

Curious where you can buy the state regulated weed in 2021? Below you will find a list of all coffeeshops which will participate in the trial. Of course, with the assumption that the coffeeshops still exist by that time.

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